


Sore

by semataryeyes



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: 2004 Warped Tour, Angst, Other, it is all angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:28:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26471902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/semataryeyes/pseuds/semataryeyes
Kudos: 4





	Sore

It’s been eight weeks since Gerard has taken a shower. Eight weeks engulfed in his own stench and grime. 56 days since feeling hot water and slippery soap against his skin. He blames it on being on tour, not having access to running water or privacy. His bandmates take Warped Tour showers, which entail setting a water bag out in the sun all day so it’s warm later instead of cold water shocking the skin. Frank asks Gerard every morning before they have their sound check if he wants him to set one out, but the answer is always no. Why is the answer always no? Is it because Gerard likes to be filthy? Does he like to be covered in a layer of dirt and sweat and other bodily fluids that may not be his own? No. 

No, that’s not it. It’s not about wanting to be clean. He wants so badly to be clean. It’s about not deserving to be clean. It’s about making himself so repulsive that not even his best friends want to be within a mile of him. 

Meeting fans is hard now. He wants the people who support him to be happy, he wants to meet and talk to the people that are the reason his career as a musician has taken off, but their crinkled noses and odd looks after getting close enough to hug him or take photos breaks his heart. He knows they will never say anything to him, they probably blame it on the summer heat and thrashing around on stage that day, but it’s been festering for eight weeks. He feels like a sore in his own band, a sore to the world. 

Mikey worries, as always. He worries about his brother’s mental health, worries when he sees Gerard down bottle after bottle of whatever he’s given. He’ll never feel sane until his brother is well, or at least on the path to getting there, but at this rate that sanity will never come. That scares him shitless. 

Frank loves Gerard to pieces, is always there for him and will always be there for him, though even he can only take so much. He still sits close to Gerard and asks him how he’s doing, he tries his best to hide the change in expression he gets when the wind breezes by and violently forces the stench up his nostrils. He’ll hold Gerard’s hand, yet there’s always that anxious pulling away, an action that puts heavy strain on Frank’s heart. A stage kiss or grope is one thing, but real intimacy and romance is another. He wonders if it’s him. It’s not. 

Gerard feels like he is nothing. Like his life has no meaning. He feels like a constant burden that weighs everyone down. He is dead weight. He is a corpse attached to his loved one that they have the responsibility of dragging around. Mikey deserves a better big brother, someone that he can look up to and be proud of. Frank deserves a better lover, one who will wear him proudly on their arm. Gerard is not good enough for either of them. He is ashamed and broken and can’t kick this depression that has its hooks so deep. 

He wants to feel clean, he wants to be clean, he wants to smile and laugh until it hurts. Yet all the things he wishes he had or could be seem so out of reach. He loses touch with reality a little more with each day that goes by and soon there will be nothing left of him. He’ll be plastered to the floor of their tour bus wearing his filthy, cheap suit surrounded by empties and feeling just as empty inside. He’ll be dead. Mikey will find him, or Frank, or Ray, and it will all end. Everything will fall apart and nothing will ever be normal again unless he lets the people who care about him help. 

He needs it. He’s slowly dying on his own. Baring his soul and letting it all spill out is what his nightmares are made of, but this isn’t how he wants to live anymore. He has to do something, and do something he will. 

He won’t let this depression take him over any longer. 


End file.
